![]() Pangea Software is a long time Mac developer (1987) and they were ready for the App Store and iPhone from the get go. Some developers like The Iconfactory even had apps ready before the App Store was available. Loads of then Mac only developers tried their hands at iOS development to have something ready for the launch of the iPhone. The games feature great music and sound effects, and if you’re lucky enough to be using a Mac that has a 3-D audio card or FireWave adapter from Griffin, you can even hear the audio effects in 3-D (since Pangea Arcade uses a technology called OpenAL to manage positional audio).If you missed it, the App Store celebrates 10 years and Jared wrote about why this is a big deal here. (It first bowed in the early ’90s.) While this Firefall is prettier than the original and the bonus stages are fun enough, I was still left wanting-Ambrosia Software’s excellentĪpeiron far exceeds it in terms of production value and fun.Īs we’ve come to expect from Pangea, production quality is top-notch. Of the three games, Firefall makes the roughest transition to 2006-I remember the original Firefall well. Warheads is certainly a nice refresh of Missile Command, though there really isn’t anything spectacularly new about it. Of the three games, Nucleus was the one I liked the best-blowing up the asteroids was challenging enough, and the addition of building atoms is a fun diversion. There’s also a powerdown that you’ll want to avoid-the green shortshot downgrade. Occasionally you’ll see a pill-shaped powerup descend from where a barrier used to be-powerups include triple-shot, which makes bullets come out of either side of your ship, worm-seeking bullets, freeze, which freezes everything on screen, and more. In addition to blowing up the worms, you can also shoot barriers to get them out of your way and secure a clear shot. There are three waves of bonus drones on each bonus level. If you blast them all before they jet off screen, you’ll be awarded a bonus of 10,000 points. At the end of the level there’s a bonus round where bonus drones appear, flying all over the screen in intricate patterns. You have a limited supply of ammunition so you have to make each shot count-particularly when the enemy missiles begin to break off into individual warheads and take multiple trajectories towards your power stations and missile launchers. You use three different buttons to fire missiles from each individual launcher (either keys on the keyboard or buttons on your mouse, if so equipped). Incoming warheads threaten both the power stations and your missile launchers. Warheads follows the classic Missile Command format-you have three land-based missile launchers that are protecting a series of power stations. You’ll occasionally have to dodge oncoming comets, which will blow you up if they get too close. A heads up display makes it easy to locate the nearest nucleus with a friendly arrow showing you the right direction to travel. There are bonuses you can grab-you’ll find Powerup Pods floating in space that will give you additional points, new weapons, a free life, a “Supernova” that blows up all the asteroids on the screen, and more. That’s essentially the end of the level-you keep building bigger and bigger atoms, and you’ll find that the shapes and conditions of the space rocks change with each progressive level. Then it’s time to get out of Dodge, because the singularity sucks up everything in its wake-including your spaceship. Get enough electrons (one for hydrogen, two for helium, three for lithium, and so on) and the nucleus will collapse into a singularity-a black hole. The electrons will automatically fall into your spaceship’s gravitational field and follow you around the game screen like an obedient puppy until you locate the glowing nucleus-get close enough, and the nucleus will attract the electron. You’re there to blow up the asteroids, sure, but there’s a method to your madness: You’re actually trying to assemble elements by grabbing stray electrons that appear after you’re done blowing up the space rocks. In Nucleus, you find yourself in the cockpit of a triangular spaceship floating amongst the debris of an asteroid field. This is no mere homage to those classic games-it reinvents them and adds the sophisticated 3-D graphics, particle effects, physics and even 3-D audio (if your Mac is so equipped) that today’s gamers expect. But once you take a look at Pangea Arcade you’ll understand. Based on arcade games that are, in some cases, more than 25 years old, it may come as a shock that Pangea Arcade demands pretty hefty system requirements, comparatively-a G4/1GHz or faster, 512MB RAM and 64MB VRAM.
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